Brian Freeman found a flaw in my article Reinstall Windows when you’ve lost your reinstall disc or partition. I told readers that “when it comes time to activate Windows, use the activation ...

Tom Warren is a senior editor and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft’s final copy of Windows 8 leaked online back in early ...

If your key is not accepted and activation fails ... To update, you need to have Windows 8 or Windows 7 already on your PC. To upgrade to Windows 11, you need Windows 10. If you formatted or ...

We were able to activate a fresh Windows 11 Pro 22H2 install with a Windows 8 Pro product key as of this morning, as was Neowin. But Neowin could not activate a newer Insider Preview build of ...

Because the one-year free upgrade offer doesn't include a product key as part of the package, you're stuck in limbo, unactivated. Your only option is to restore and activate Windows 7 or 8.1 ...

Microsoft closed a Windows 7 / 8 key loophole last month ... in one of my test PCs and no longer being able to activate it using the digital key assigned to my Microsoft account.

even if utilizing a pre-activated Windows 7 or 8.1 key. Concurrently, a significant alteration has taken place in the activation process, specifically concerning the Hardware ID (HWID) server ...

Microsoft is currently investigating a problem that prevents the activation of Windows 10 and Windows 11, as The Verge reports. The issue affects computers on which users have upgraded from ...